Maharashtra Sports and Youth Welfare Minister Dattatray Bharne on Wednesday said it would be wrong to accuse his party colleague as well as Food and Civil Supplies Minister Dhananjay Munde of having anything to do with the murder of Massajog village sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh.

“Everyone knows that the investigation is going on. Valmik Karad surrendered yesterday. Action will be taken against the culprits in this case. Dhananjay Munde is our leader. Everyone has a friend and a worker. Simply because a leader’s friends do something does not mean that the leader himself is at fault.

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“Everything will come out after the investigation. So I would like to tell you honestly that Dhananjay Munde should not be linked to the murder of Santosh Deshmukh in any way,” Ajit Pawar-led NCP leader Dattatray Bharne.

Interestingly, Sports and Youth Welfare Minister Bharne’s statement came shortly after BJP leader and Maharashtra CM Fadnavis saying, “I do not want to get into politics of this matter. I have already said that action will be taken according to the evidence that comes to light. For me, it is important that the people responsible for the murder of the late Santosh Deshmukh get punished. Some people only care about politics. Their politics is profitable for them.

“I do not want to get into any politics. They should continue doing their politics. I don’t think their politics will benefit them much. Therefore, I don’t want to make any political statement. I don’t want to support it and I don’t want to oppose it either. The opposition should continue to do politics. However, our position is clear that Santosh Deshmukh should get justice and he will get it,” he said.

Incidentally, both the BJP and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP are part of the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra. Besides, CM Fadnavis who also happens to head the home department which oversees the functioning of the police, has still not asked his food and civil supplies minister Dhananjay Munde to step down, despite the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) parties demanding vociferously that Munde must resign in order to ensure that the investigation into the murder of Massajog village sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh of the BJP, is not compromised.

Not surprisingly, the MVA opposition parties have begun to ask if the investigation into the murder of Massajog village sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh of the BJP has already been compromised.

“Fadnavis seems to be trying to reduce the entire episode to a simple matter of a mere murder case and nothing else at a time when everybody is talking about the alleged political patronage his food and civil supplies minister Dhananjay Munde had been extending to criminal activities in Beed. Ideally, the investigation must examine how such political patronage led to the murder of Massajog village sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh.

“Instead of that, we have a strange situation where the CM who controls the home ministry under which the police functions, saying that he does not wish to talk about the political connections related to this murder case. Now we have Dattatray Bharne who is a party colleague of food and civil supplies minister Dhananjay Munde trying to give the impression that Munde has no connections with the alleged killer Valmik Karad. Also, Deputy CM Ajit Pawar, who is the leader of the NCP to which Dhananjay Munde belongs, is missing and Ajit Pawar yet to make any statement. All this appears very strange,” an Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena leader said.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that Deputy CM Ajit Pawar is vacationing abroad to celebrate the New Year and his reaction to the surrender of Valmik Karad and demands that Dhananjay Munde must resign from the cabinet can be expected only after he returns to India.

The opposition has been demanding that Dhananjay Munde must resign and thousands of citizens in Beed district had also demanded the resignation of Dhananjay Munde during a protest march demanding justice for murdered Massajog village sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh, which was a demand raised during the winter session of the Maharashtra assembly as well. Both opposition as well as ruling party leaders have been demanding the resignation of Dhananjay Munde to ensure that the investigation into the murder case is not compromised.

Incidentally, on the day of the winter session, Ajit Pawar had gone to Massajog village in Beed and consoled the Deshmukh family, but after the villagers directly named Dhananjay Munde and demanded his resignation, Ajit Pawar left the village. Since then, Ajit Pawar has not said anything about the alleged connections between the alleged killer Valmik Karad and food and civil supplies minister Dhananjay Karad.

Murdered village official Santosh Deshmukh’s brother Dhananjay Deshmukh too had filed a petition at the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court on Monday, seeking direction to remove NCP leader Dhananjay Munde from the cabinet to ensure fair investigation into the matter. The petitioner claimed that Munde is related to the head of a criminal gang in Beed which played a role in the murder of Santosh Deshmukh.